Griffith (The Blue Room; Slow River) opens her latest on the roof of a cabin in a North Carolina mountaintop forest, moving from a wide focus on a primordial wilderness to acute closeups of particular delicious sights and smells. Even before we learn the barest details about tall, blonde, singular Aud ("rhymes with shroud") Torvingen, we are seduced by her awareness, competence and her relish for the physical details of life. We learn that she has slipped off to this forest to rebuild an old cabin because she is grieving profoundly for her lover, Julia, who died in a hail of bullets. An old friend unexpectedly shows up asking for help tracking down his fiancee, who has gone missing in Manhattan, and the deft way Aud secures the cabin and travels (stopping outside of town to stow her pick-up truck and slip into an elegant Eileen Fisher outfit) reveals that this is a woman with a very sharp edge. Once Aud, a former Atlanta police officer, finds her friend's lover in a loft downtown, the action kicks into high gear and we are taken inside a character who is as brutal as she is sensitive, as wildly and exuberantly violent as she is bereaved. Yet as Griffith is enthralling us with each utterly convincing yet surprising turn, she also allows Aud to move forward emotionally. What makes Griffith's work especially satisfying and exciting is the way her extraordinary protagonist demolishes false human boundaries just as surely as she demolishes bad people. Aud is hugely complex and unique, and Griffith deserves a huge following. (Apr. 16) Forecast: This has the potential to be a breakout book for Griffith, winner of the Nebula Award, the James Tiptree Jr. Award and five Lambda Awards. She already has a solid fan base, but handselling to adventurous readers (who will instantly be hooked) could take her to the next level. (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Ex-Atlanta cop Aud Torvingen's friend Dornan owns a profitable string of cafes, but he can't keep his hands on his fiancee. Soon after she accepted his engagement ring, business developer Tammy Foster signed on as a consultant with a firm putting up a mall in Florida. Then the calls began: She'd be another week longer, no, three weeks, four; she'd gone to New York to learn from Geordie Karp, the psychologist advising the clients how wide to make the aisles and where to put the most profitable merchandise. Now, nothing, so Dornan wants Aud (The Blue Place, 1998) to round up Tammy and bring her home. Sunk in mourning for her lover Julia, whose shooting death she blames on herself, Aud is in no mood to take on another case, or even leave her shambles of a home. But it turns out to be surprisingly easy for Aud to locate Tammy in New York, and not all that difficult to persuade her shell-shocked quarry to leave. When Tammy recovers enough to start talking about her sexual thralldom to the monstrous Karp, however, Aud realizes her job has only begun. Aud will have to recover the evidence of her enslavement Karp is holding over Tammy, neutralize the evidence of dozens of other equally sordid affairs, and somehow release Luz Bexar, Karp's nine-year-old "wife-in-training," from the foster family that's tending her in backwoods Arkansas. Powered by grief and righteous rage, Aud succeeds in all these tasks and more-far more than some readers will want-in a darkly revealing, furiously entertaining adventure.

This is the second title in Griffith's mystery series (following The Blue Place, 1998) featuring six-foot-tall, twentysomething Aud Torvingen, an independently wealthy, retired Atlanta police lieutenant. Aud, once a cold-blooded killing machine, feels responsible for the death of her lover, Julia. Blindsided by grief, she throws herself into renovating her isolated North Carolina cabin. Then a longtime friend begs her for help in finding his missing girlfriend, Tammy, and Aud faces the double challenge of reentering civilization and tracking Tammy down in New York City. Aud finds a frightened, submissive woman quite unlike the Tammy she knew before. When Tammy finally reveals the full extent of her treatment at the hands of a sadistic sociopath, Aud returns to New York City and a violent encounter with Tammy's abuser. Griffith knows how to build her scenes, and her precision results in a taut, compelling plotline. Even more impressive is the complicated, supremely capable character of Aud, given to great bouts of grief punctuated by brutal moments of violence. This is one tough detective. --Joanne Wilkinson